By Luisa Terzulli
From 16th July until 15th October 2006 the Royal Academy of Arts hosts Modigliani and His Models. Dedicated to the great artist from Livorno, Italy, the exhibition – which is obtaining an extraordinary public’s approval – is a whole of portraits, a journey through his short but intense career, to define with firm brush-strokes the influence which those faces exerted on his works and his life. And the course of our journey is exactly an excursus through these characters, first of all the Portrait of Frank Burty Haviland. His collection of African statues revealed itself as an epiphany to Modigliani’s eyes, leading the artist style to a completely new direction, towards those distinctive faces lengthened in an almost unnatural way – typical of African customs and sculpture – which he would have never abandoned in the future.
In his circle of acquaintances we also found Pablo Picasso, whose Portrait reveals the adoption of some of the elements characterising the “primitive” art of the Spanish colleague, such as the simplification of shapes and mask-like faces.
And as for any self-respecting bohèmien, even Modigliani’s brush found inspiration in the types of a woman face. His tempestuous relationship with Beatrice Hastings, fomented by hashish and alcohol, saw his lover as a model for 14 nudes and portraits. Beatrice, who was the Paris correspondent for the arts columns of the London newspaper The New Age, is shown at the Royal Academy in Beatrice Hastings in Front of a Door, portrayed by Modigliani in a courteous and calm pose, in spite of her well known wild temperament.
Paul Guillaume Seated is a tribute to the man who was the first dealer of our artist, an ambitious self-taught and promoter of avant-garde art, who would eventually made room for Léopold Zborowski. The latter was his real mentor, providing him with salary, housing and materials in exchange for his works. He was “generously” repaid by the painter, who included Anna, Léopold’s companion, on the walkway of his many lovers and made her one of his chief models posing for at least 10 portraits, 3 of which exhibited at the Royal Academy.
But the life of our artist would be tied until its end to that of another artist, the young Jeanne Hébuterne, of which we can admire several portraits in this exhibition. One above all Head of Jeanne Hébuterne: the distinctive lengthened face which recalls an African statue, and two black eyes glancing straight at the viewer.
Despite of the most of his contemporaries, Modigliani did not like to be portrayed, and this is the reason why his sole Self-portrait with a pale face, the rigid mask types, the awareness of the disease and imminent death, appears as his testament, the last witness of a bohèmien life, devoted to women, alcohol, drugs, but most of all to art.
Copyright 2006 GIORGIOSTUDIO – All rights reserved
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